Villain speculation

To preface, this isn't a teaser review or reaction, I'm sure there are a lot of those out there already. This is just some random plot speculation on my part. Possible spoiler alert, but probably not, I know just as much as you, maybe less. I've actually been avoiding all Star Wars news save for the teaser itself, so someone else may have proposed, or ruled out this theory already, I don't know.

So I saw the teaser a month or so ago, damn cool and such, I wasn't going to intentionally do any speculation, but just a couple days ago I was reading concept art books for episodes 4 and 5, and I had this sudden thought,

What was the thought process behind the lightsaber in the Episode 7 trailer?

Well, the easy and perhaps obvious answer is, "We wanted to do something different with the lightsaber, like they did in Episode I."
That may very well be correct, but I have another idea.

That doesn't look like the simple, clean, elegant blade we all know lightsabers have. It looks unstable, and unrefined. It doesn't look like an 'elegant weapon for a civilized age', it looks like a relic of an age passed, it brings to mind images of a Star Wars equivalent of the Knights Templar or the Knights of the Round Table. My theory?

The villain could a student of the ancient Force and a collector of ancient Force artifacts.

The lightsaber could be one such artifact. Think about what he says in the trailer, "There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?" Perhaps he knows something of the Force that nobody else does(Not much of a stretch, considering that Luke was the last Jedi by the end of the last movie...) - Maybe he knows of a long-dormant power resurfacing, and wants to take advantage of it. Or perhaps they're doing something Old Republic-ish and he actually wants to stop this.

Either way, if something along those lines is the case, suddenly "The Force Awakens" is a much less stupid title than I'd initially thought. Furthermore, consider the director, J.J. Abrams is a man *obsessed* with mystery. He did a whole TED talk about mystery box storytelling. He even said back in pre-production that he wanted to bring some mystery back into Star Wars. You can bet he'd jump on the opportunity to make the Force mysterious again.
It would also fit Disney's mantra of prequel-distancing or "fixing". Whether or not you liked the prequels, it's impossible to deny that Disney realizes that they weren't all that loved and are putting as little emphasis on them as possible in the leadup to the new movies. And one of the major complaints about the prequels is that they "de-mystified the Force" with midichlorians. This character with knowledge of the ancient Force could be a step in the direction of "re-mystifying" it.

And... yeah, that's about the extent of the theory. I know it's not much, but I'm solely working off what little we saw in the 80-something second teaser and what I know about the writers. It doesn't matter though, it's just a thought I had and felt like sharing. Maybe I'm way off, maybe I'm on to something, I don't know.

But I look forward to finding out later this year, for better or for worse.

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Please note: I am all for speculation and theorizing, but if you have any official or confirmed plot/character information, please refrain from posting it in the comments, or post it with a spoiler warning. I am avoiding as much official Ep7 news as I can, I'd love to see the movie with as little prior knowledge about it possible. Thanks!